Chapter 13
Clay
When I arrived at my apartment it was early Sunday morning, and the Christmas lights were still on and I could see the ones that had been strung around the window with the fake snow along with the small Christmas tree in a box with ornaments pre-hung on it.
I hadn’t smiled for hours, but the idea of what I had just left and to see the difference had been ironic. For some reason the idea of that small fake tree had made me happy and had been a distraction from Mason.
When I opened the door, Tyler and Marty were sitting at the breakfast table, well, it was the table we used for every occasion and there they sat eating breakfast, leaning in and kissing each other.
Although they must have heard all the keys and locks, that didn’t stop them, they were in love.
Love does that to you. You can’t see or hear anything because your ears are ringing and your brain is on the off mode.
All you want is an excuse to fall into bed, fall into the object of your affection and never come up for air.
Someone could be burglarizing your apartment, but when you are in love and your tongue is down their throat, or you are balls deep inside your lover, you don’t care.
Earlier that night it had been me. Earlier I had been on top of the world with the new love of my life, and I was closed to all suggestions and warnings that I should be careful and not sleep with a man on the first date, especially if he had been my employer.
I heard none of this. And if I did, I didn’t want to think it would be me. But hell, who was I to think I was different and special.
Mason had been everything I’d asked for, but I got more than I asked for. I didn’t ask for a supposedly straight dude who had been married for years. I didn’t ask to be the top in our relationship. I didn’t even ask for the large bonus he’d given me.
Now I was thinking if I had to pay it back because I’d broken my contract by fucking one of the partners in a well-known law firm and ended up in court, then everything I’d worked for and dreamed about would be for nothing, and I had no one to blame but me because my friends Tyler and Marty had told me so.
Finally, they glanced over to me as I stood as if I was a deer in headlights somewhat surprised.
“Wow, don’t you look used. Just fucked hair all over the place,” Marty said with a chuckle as he waved his arms in the air.
“Shoes on the wrong foot.” I glanced down.
“Just kidding. Come and sit down and tell us all about your night. Did the party last all night and you’re coming from breakfast with your new office friends?
” I wished. I wished I didn’t have to tell them they were right.
“No one stays out all night these days.” Damn, I just told on myself and now I had to explain. I exhaled and rolled my eyes.
“Then where the fuck were you? Not walking in Central Park because no one does that anymore if they ever did. Did you go on the Westside highway to one of those bars?” I remained silent as they peppered me with where I had gone.
I tried to distract them with another conversation. “I see there are more gifts under the tree. Got a raise, Tyler?” He glanced at the tree in the corner wondering what I saw.
“No. If you’re wondering if we used the money you gave us to buy more things, we did not. We have bills to pay, now answer the question,” Tyler said.
I dropped on the sofa and stared at the tree with its blinking lights. “If you must know, I was with Mason.”
“Not your boss. The Mason of Halifax and Mason? Tell me you didn’t do this,” Tyler said, almost rising from his chair. I slumped on the sofa behind the small table which held a bowl of Christmas candy canes.
I placed my hand and stared at the sofa I thought I’d said goodbye to as soon as I knew what my assignment would be, and when I’d received my first paycheck because my bonus money had been all but spent.
Pay Tyler and Marty for putting up with me and get an apartment where I didn’t need a cat to get rid of rats.
“So, now which one fucked you? I forget. Was it Halifax or Mason?” Marty joined the conversation, double-teaming me for being so stupid.
“Neither one.”
“So, if one of them didn’t fuck you, then why the long face and the wild look?” Marty questioned.
“Because it was me who fucked Mason.” There was an exchange of glances and a long silence. Then they blurted out loud laughter almost spitting up what they were eating.
“You shit us not?” Marty said, exchanging glances with Tyler.
“I shit you not. I topped Mason and he was a virgin.”
“Then why are you so upset? What happened? You didn’t do your job and he didn’t get an orgasm.
Last time I remember, you were a bottom.
And all of a sudden you’re this bossy top who can take on a man his age?
” It wasn’t a rhetorical question Tyler posed.
He wanted me to answer his ridiculous question.
“Never had a virgin I see. What did it feel like?” Marty asked, and Tyler hit his hand. “Ow.” I wasn’t going to answer that question and they knew it.
“To tell you the truth...” They leaned in, “It feels like I just fucked up my life and first job ever.”
“Well, didn’t we warn you. Tyler said—” I raised my hand.
“I know what you said, and you were right.” I told them everything that occurred.
How his wife came in and she has a girlfriend waiting in her car, and the wife said she was in in love with her girlfriend.
However, they were both in love with Mason’s money and the money was hard to give up, and that’s why she reassured him that he had nothing to worry about, but she went back on her word, and got evidence that he had a lover as well and the lover was ten years his junior. ”
“I don’t know what to say, Clay, only I’m sorry,” Tyler admitted.
“I just didn’t think you would because I thought I knew you.
” He did, but he didn’t know what arrogance of youth can do to your brain when you think you’re in love at first sight.
I thought Mason was the one man I could depend on and spend my life with.
“Mason said he could fix it, and there’s no need to worry.”
“And you believed him?” Marty questioned.
“I’ll know when I go in to work tomorrow. My first day on the job.”
“You’ll know when no one wants to look you in the eyes.
You’ll know when they’ll want to stay far away from you as if a bomb would go off and take them out too.
And you’ll know when they have this exchange of Christmas gifts thing they do in offices, and no one wants to pick your name or you to pick theirs because they don’t think they’ll get their gift because you won’t be there.
I’ve been where you are, Clay, ask Tyler. Tyler shook his head in agreement with Marty. They won’t want to be within ten feet of you. Those are the signs. But one thing you can count on is if you got Mason crazy about you as you are about him, then you won’t have to worry.”
I thought they were trying to make me feel better. All I thought about was this was the worst Christmas of my life, well not the worst.
“He’s not going to be into the office for a week.” Tyler glanced at Marty and they both turned to me once more, but this time they didn’t say a word. I sat looking at the both of them waiting for a good word, but none came after that statement.
They lowered their heads and started eating their cold breakfast of eggs and toast. When I rose from the sofa to take a shower and prepare for tomorrow, “We left you something for breakfast. Get it before the cat does,” Marty said.
“I’m not hungry.”
“It doesn’t matter. Eat anyway, because you have to build your strength. Being a top isn’t easy.” And Tyler hit him on the arm once more. “You have to stop doing that,” Marty said. “You know I’m delicate.
“I will if you stop telling our business.” Then Tyler reached for Marty and kissed him hard.
Reached for his hand and took him in the direction of the bedroom.
“We have all Sunday to lie in bed and in each other’s arms and go over our Christmas list. It will be a short one this year because it seems Clay isn’t moving out. ”
They weren’t showing off in front of me because that would be the last thing they would do.
They were honestly horny for each other from the day I met the two of them on the Columbia campus and as usual I was sitting alone.
They took me under their wings and helped me through hard times like now.
They were good friends and if I do nothing else, I needed to make it to help my friends along the way.
They were a new couple and even though this could have been a fragile relationship like mine and Mason’s, they never made me feel as if I wasn’t a part of their family.
They helped me with everything, and I wanted to repay them even though they didn’t want me to.
They literally saved my life, and it was Christmas as well, and that was the worst Christmas I had experienced.
When I finally admitted I had been in an abusive relationship, they came to my apartment packed my things and brought me to live with them. As we were leaving my boyfriend’s apartment, my boyfriend had returned in the middle of the move.
He stood in front of them, and said, “Who the fuck are you and what are you doing in my apartment?”
“You don’t need to know our names, only that we came to get our friend. And if you do anything to stop us—” Tyler barked.
“I’m going to call the police.”
“Good, call the police and ask for Sargent Cole. He’s in the station house up the block,” Tyler said. “And while you’re at it, tell him how you verbally abused our friend and physically abused him. And make no mistake about it, he’s gay too and he has a hard on for men like you.”
“I was just saying—”
“I know what the fuck you were saying, Pearson. I know your name, and if you contact Clay or come near him, Cole and I will see that you wished you’d never heard the name Clayton. Wipe him out of your memory, you sick fuck, and move and let us pass,” Marty said.
Marty had shocked me because he had the balls I never thought he had.
He appeared to be the submissive in their relationship.
He always gave in to Tyler in almost everything I observed.
If they wanted to go out to dinner, he’d tell Tyler to choose.
When they bought groceries, Marty suggested where he’d preferred to go, but never did.
He’d insist and when Tyler wanted to purchase anything, whether it was a new shirt or furniture for their inadequate apartment, he’d make a suggestion, but Tyler always seemed to get his way, and Marty never appeared to get angry.
Maybe there was something about their relationship that I didn’t understand, and as I looked from the outside I didn’t have the entire picture.
Marty had a way of getting what he wanted.
And the Marty I thought I knew, I didn’t know at all because you only knew a person when you got close enough to smell, taste, and experience them in a personal way.
Once I rid myself of Pearson, my life was different in that I had peace, and I was far happier to accomplish the things I needed to. For example, taking my test for law school and passing.
After that time, I didn’t have a man, and one who distracted me from what was important in my life and because I’d been scared off by Pearson.
However, now I was ready to live and love again, and I was older and as they said wiser.
I wanted the feeling of happiness if not forever, but for now, because I did know that the sensation of happiness didn’t last forever.
I just had to hold on to it and try to make that desire I had for Mason last for a few mornings.
I strode into the kitchen and had to fight the resident cat for my breakfast because I didn’t feel like going out alone.
Marty and Tyler were in the bed, and when I climbed into my sofa bed they were busy catching up on their lovemaking they’d neglected because of work and chores that kept most people busy during the week.